Penelope Mackenzie was born in Tangier, the daughter of Colonel
Alexander Mackenzie. As a young woman she was sent to stay at the Jacobite
court in exile in Paris, where she met Allan (or Ailean) MacDonald, Chief of
the Clan Ranald. The two married, and in 1696 returned to Allan's ancestral
home in the Western Isles.
This was at Borgh Castle, on the south side of the island of
Benbecula. Penelope took an
immediate dislike to the castle, and in 1701 Allan MacDonald began work on a
more modern castle on South
Uist.

Ormacleit
Castle was completed in 1708, and the family moved into it. The life they
lived reflected their earlier experience in the Jacobite royal court and
Ormacleit Castle,
complete with a bard and a piper, has since come to be regarded as one of the
last examples of the flowering of traditional Gaelic culture. It also became a
centre for Jacobite sympathisers, and after taking part in the 1715 uprising,
Allan MacDonald was killed at the
Battle of Sheriffmuir on
the 13 November 1715. By most accounts the fire that destroyed
Ormacleit Castle took
hold on the evening the battle took place, and was accidentally started in the
kitchen where a side of venison was being cooked.

With Allan dead and many of his male relatives in exile, Penelope
took over the running of those parts of the vast Clan Ranald estates that had
not been confiscated by the Government. Through her own family connections she
was able to gain the support of the Duke of Argyll for the estates to be
returned to the MacDonalds in 1727, though the income the estates generated was
never enough to clear all the accrued debts. Penelope is remembered for doing
much to support the continued dominance of Roman Catholicism in the southern
half of the Western Isles,
and "Penelope" continues to be a popular girls' name in
South Uist.